Utwory na płycie:

• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: Introduction - Curtain
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: First Dance: Dance of the Princess in the Forest
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: The Prince falls in love
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: Towards the castle of the Princess - Second Dance: Dance of the trees
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: The Prince continues on his way - Third Dance: Dance of the Waves
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: The Prince has an idea
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: The Princess is curious - Fourth Dance: Dance of the Princess with the Wooden Prince
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: The Prince despairs
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: The Prince is restored
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: Return of the Princess - Fifth Dance
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: Collapse of the Wooden Prince - Sixth Dance
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: Seventh Dance - The despair of the Princess
• The Wooden Prince, Op. 13: The Happy End
• Concert Suite from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’, Op. 19: Introduction - The three Tramps and the Girl
• Concert Suite from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’, Op. 19: First decoy game: the old rake
• Concert Suite from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’, Op. 19: Second decoy game: the young boy
• Concert Suite from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’, Op. 19: Third decoy game: The Mandarin appears
• Concert Suite from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’, Op. 19: The Girl begins to dance for the Mandarin
• Concert Suite from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’, Op. 19: The Mandarin chases the Girl

The Wooden Prince, Op. 13 - Dance-pantomime in one act
Concert Suite from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’, Op. 19

The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin are –together with the earlier opera Bluebeard’s Castle–the only stage works by Béla Bartók. They stand apart from the more abstract and often more explicitly folk-related character of the music that we primarily associate with the composer. They are nevertheless major achievements that in different ways highlight Bartók’s imaginative use of the modern orchestra.

Set in an enchanted forest, The Wooden Princeis based on a fairytale-like libretto featuring a prince and princess. The two are subjected to various trials, but at the end of the ballet they are allowed to come together and live – we assume – happily ever after. In stark contrast, The Miraculous Mandarin takes place in an urban brothel where three robbers force a girl to seduce men so that they can overpower and kill them. The subject-matter and the erotic qualities of much of the music caused a scandal at the premiere in 1926, and for a long time the score was primarily performed in the shorter concert version heard on the present disc, the first from the team of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Susanna Mälkki, the orchestra’s chief conductor since 2016.

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Recording: May 2017 (The Wooden Prince) and February 2018 (The Miraculous Mandarin).